One big popularity contest

Well, first off, I apparently caused quite a stir with my Dear Cyclist post that ended up as blog of the week over in the FreeP Sunday edition. I wish I had been told I was going to be the featured blog so that I could have jumped in to the comments earlier, as it was, by the time I commented it was old news. So, since I was "involved" I actually read the comments, going against my not-going-so-well resolution of not reading them to stave off murderous rampages towards the many ignorant folk who seem to live in Winnipeg.

Amazingly, the comments were slightly better than usual, and, gasp, it almost appeared as though some people had read my story the whole way through before commenting! And, according to perpetual commenter Woofers, one of the comments may have even set some sort of record with the number of "thumbs down" it received. All of that attention on my little post! Based on all of that, I don't know if I'm happy or sad that the link to my blog in the online story didn't work - I currently like that right now most of the people who comment on my blog seem to be of higher intelligence than the average FreeP hyper-commenter. I did see a ton of traffic to the blog who had googled how to find it so I hope I found a few new loyal readers.

But enough about me.

I stumbled upon one of those internet popularity contest things today that is for a local youth organization. The West Broadway Youth Outreach program is part of the Scotiabank Gamechangers competition to win $100,000 for their programming. Now, if my reading of the rules and regulations is correct, since they have already won as Regional Game Changers, I don't know for sure if votes between now and when they start the voting for the overall winner (October 29th) really make a difference, but it certainly can't hurt to get in the habit of voting every day so that you are super dedicated to the cause when it matters! Vote here. We sadly hear all to often about how funding is cut for youth organizations, well here is a chance to help make up for that and it won't even cost you any of your tax dollars. As a rule, the concept of this type of popular vote contest isn't my favourite, as many worthwhile causes that just don't know how to rally the troops as well are often left out. However, I can't change that, so I might as well suck it up and give my daily click.

This weekend has so much going on, I don't even know where to start! It is of course, Giveaway weekend, which means that Winnipeg Girl will be trolling the streets looking for discarded arborite tables and other goodies. I think one of the best scores I ever got is the office chair I currently sit on - one of those no-back kneely deals. It was basically new, I'm guessing they didn't stick with it long enough to learn to love it. Now, as there is more competition than I can handle on this weekend for treasures, I usually think of it as an excuse to drive around some of my favourite Winnipeg neighbourhoods and drool over the architecture. Fort Garry by the river/Wildwood Park, watch out, here I come!

This weekend also has the last big car show of the year, held at Garden City on Sunday. This is ALWAYS a great day and brings out many of the best cars from around the Winnipeg area. Now that the mall opens before noon (or, at least I presume it does?) if cars aren't the thing for everyone in your group there is a few extra hours of "entertainment" for them inside.

I'm more than a little sad that the weather has turned so cold, in winter I don't have my cheery flowers to greet me every time I come home. Speaking of, since clearly there will be no progressive stories on my Wolseley Project 2.0, I will do a wrap-up post complete with pictures hopefully next week. Hint: (unless this jinxes it for the the weekend) it is a good news post.

MS Paddlewheel Queen and her Princess

One of the most common things that brings folks to my blog is people searching for either the Paddlewheel restaurant at The Bay, or people searching for a river cruise. I wrote a post last year about this, and at that time directed people to the MS River Rouge.

Well, things seem to have changed a bit and apparently both the MS Paddlewheel Queen and Princess will be up and running again this year. Call 204-942-4500 for schedules. They will be leaving from the Redwood docks, so stop by and say hello and visit the Wolseley Project 2.0, soon to be up and running.

The Wolseley Project - in the end

Well, summer is pretty much officially over, and boy was it a good one! For those of you who've been with me for a little while, you will remember my attempt to Wolseley-ify the North End a touch, with my boulevard flowers. I am very excited to say that I've decided the project was a success. It was also such a great conversation starter with folks who were walking by; even yesterday as I was pulling the soon to be dead flowers out, a young woman took the time to tell me how much she had enjoyed seeing them all summer and she also commented on how beautiful the rest of my flowers had been. I very happily and truthfully told her that that is exactly why I did it - for everyone to enjoy.

It wasn't without its hiccups, a torn out flower here and there, but I think the biggest hurdle they faced was a lack of water (sheesh, who was supposed to maintain those anyway?) and too much sunshine. However, me and my black thumb managed to keep them going, and really, is there such thing as too much sunshine?

Fall is has come and made itself comfortable here in the North End, and it's one of those times of year that I feel the difference the most strongly between here and other parts of town. Out in the 'burbs it can be a competition to keep the grass free of wayward leaves, but here in the North End with a partially aging and partially disengaged community, raking isn't something that is tops on the list of priorities. That being said, I mostly don't rake, I balance my tree-hugging self with my lazy self and mulch the heck out of the leaves with my gas lawnmower - if you "mow" the lawn twice it looks just as good as raking and you leave all those little leafy bits deep in the grass to become mulchy goodness. Of course, my poplar trees are the last freakin' trees in the neighbourhood to lose their leaves, usually not dropping off until the weight of the snow pulls them down, so my dreams of a flawless looking lawn are dashed. I've also learned, that it is worth every penny to hire magical fairies that come and power rake it in the spring, getting rid of all the gravel and sand that living on a corner gets you. I could of course leave it all there, but I view the boulevard as an extension of my lawn and maintain it as such.

As we know as well, Winnipeg Girl loves a good deal, and I've got another one to pass along - get your eaves cleaned for only $29 - you can buy one for yourself and unlimited as gifts. Do you know what is better than climbing up on a ladder in near freezing temperatures and cleaning out wet goopy leaves from your eaves troughs? Sitting inside, drinking something delicious and watching a Jets game. Or doing just about anything else, even cleaning the cat box is probably better. Now, on one hand, it's not like cleaning them out is all that difficult, and even with a deal like this, it would still be cheaper over time to buy a ladder and do it yourself. However, if you, like Winnipeg Girl do not have a built in person to hold the ladder and call 911 when you fall off (and let me tell ya, response times here in the 'hood are way better than if you are out in Sage Creek and need them to fetch your sorry broken butt) then this is a much better way to go! As an added bonus, well for me anyway, if you click my little link above for it then I collect some sort of points or something for referring you, which is just plain nice of you to do for me ;)

I'm already excited about next year and the Wolseley Project, take 2 - it's just what will be needed after what they are predicting as a long cold winter. *Shudder*

Paddlewheel Queen, did you mean M.S. River Rouge?

It seems as though one of the highest traffic generating (besides of course h00kers) search terms to my blog is people looking to take a cruise down the Red and Assiniboine rivers on the Paddlewheel Queen and instead end up reading about the Paddlewheel restaurant at The Bay downtown.

So I decided to do some digging so I could give the people what they ask for. However, my internet sleuthing skills didn't turn up much more than what the others seem to have found. There is a facebook page that hasn't been updated in a long time with a no longer in use phone number and a dead website and an article from the FreeP that indicates they were to be no more. So I got to thinking, well, I know there is still one sightseeing boat in Winnipeg, perhaps they would be happy with that?

So here you are: you are no longer looking for the Paddlewheel Queen, you are looking for the M.S. River Rouge. You can find them here. It unfortunately also has a poorly update facebook page and poor customer service (when I emailed them to confirm their hours as their website gives off the impression that it's not up to date I was simply told to check their website, they didn't really give off a friendly helpful vibe, but I suppose that means the hours on the website are accurate?) but if you want to take Grandma on a cruise down the river then this is what you are probably looking for.

Since it docks near me in the North End, stop by and say hello and check out the Wolseley project!

When gunshots don't sound like gunshots

First some random housekeeping...

For the person who googled Root Beer Slurpee (a close second to Dr. Pepper) - if you're still looking, try the Sev in EK by Rona, just off Panet. They had them a week or two ago.

For the person looking for VW hubcaps - send me a message, I might have what you need if you didn't already find it. I, and most of my friends seem to hoard VW's.

For all of you that are looking for some variation of Winnipeg and h00kers (streets for h00kers in Winnipeg, Winnipeg h00kers, where to find Winnipeg h00kers and so on), please consider not looking in my residential part of the North End. I'm genuinely a little disturbed as to how many hits my blog gotten based on people who seem to be googling for h00kers.

To expand on a rant from way back when, Geography, where I expressed anger at negative news being attributed to the North End when it didn't belong there. At the time I didn't really have evidence that I could link to (as my own memory doesn't record details like dates and times that I get angry. Ok, well, now it does a bit more that I have a blog, but I digress...) so every time I come across something now, I try to add it to the list. So, Mike McIntyre, this one is for you. The intersection of Ross and Isabel is NOT in the North End. Thanks. While I'm thanking people, thanks to Winnipeg Cat for a daily chuckle and the link that led me to the story.


Oh, and the Wolseley project? Well, we're two weeks in and going strong. Only a little disturbance to the flowers and one lost due to natural causes.

Now on to my attention grabbing post headline...
Picture it, Saturday night in the North End. It was a nice enough night out, which generally means it's a little bit loud, but this past Saturday night was actually pretty quiet.  At one point, we'll say, maybe around 1130, I hear a series of noises that "sounded like gunshots". Or at least slightly less identifiable than most of the other noises that people claim sound like gunshots. For the record, most of the noises that are "gunshots all of the time" (see almost every story involving a shooting in the core area for this quote) are fireworks, backfiring cars, cars driving over glass bottles, cars driving over juice boxes, or pretty much any other noise besides gunshots. Of course, sometimes they are gunshots.

So Saturday night I hear a series of noises that didn't quite sound like the usual fireworks, but I wasn't really sure what they were either. Since there were no sirens immediately after I didn't really think about it too much. About half an hour or so after that, there was a loud BANG! sort of noise, but more like the sound two train cars make when they're joining up. I thought it sounded like it came from the government housing units across the street so I looked out the window, saw nothing of note, listened for a minute or so and went back to watching tv. Another minute or two later I heard the same sort of noise again so rushed to the window to try and figure out what the heck was going on. Was someone tipping over autobins again? There was not a soul in sight and no other noises to be heard. Back to my PVR I went.

About ten minutes later a vehicle tore down my street, like it was in a NASCAR race - it went by so fast that by the time I jumped up to see what kind of vehicle it was, it had already passed. I returned to the TV only to jump up like a jack in the box like 20 minutes later to the sound of a bunch of voices outside my window. This time I meandered outside to see what was going on. There were numerous cop cars milling about and the neighbours said there had been gunshots. Wait, you mean the banging noises half an hour ago?

Apparently. I wandered up to the next block where the most police activity was and asked one of the few officers who was not looking all over the ground with a flashlight, what was going on. I was asked if I heard anything, I repeated the above story and was very amusingly given a "ma'am, I can tell you that there has been a gun fired, perhaps it's best you return home". Eventually the intersection was closed off with police tape. Now, I can see most of that intersection from the window I was looking out, it can't be more than 50m from my house, and there were no people milling about after I heard the sound that didn't sound anything like what TV, Movies and my own one confirmed account of gunshots have told me that gunshots sound like.

Interestingly, right around the time they were closing off the street with police tape, about 25m to the other side of my house there was a number of cop cars all of a sudden and they had stopped a car and had 4 people down on the ground. I was led to believe (can't know for sure of course as the police tend to be tight-lipped on these sorts of things) that the two things were connected however the time delays between all of the events confuses me.

Oh, and Choppy (forgive me, I don't remember which blogger called the Police helicopter that, but it amuses me so I'm going to use it too) was there circling around for quite a while. Well surely an event of this magnitude made the papers and you're just desperately searching for where I've hidden the link to the article... nope. Nothing. Nada. No hint of a story.

I don't write this post to highlight yet another negative thing that has happened in the North End, I mean, I don't want to hide the negative either, but more to point out two things. One, we need more information from the Police. When something of this magnitude happens there should be a website that explains at least the basics so we can arm ourselves with the most powerful weapon out there - information. Perhaps a rule such as if more than XX cars are dispatched (I would say 4 is a good number) to a call, a brief summary should be made available to the public. Two, sometimes gunshots don't sound like gunshots.

The Wolseley Project - in the beginning

So while it's no secret that I love living in the North End, it's also no secret that it wasn't exactly my first choice of neighbourhood to take up residence.

Like many a quasi-hippie and hippie alike, I love Wolseley. Home St. in particular, oh the beauty of all that brick! The majestic old homes and the beautiful large trees combined with the quaint neighbourhood shops and places to nosh (pulling Sherbrook into the mix for that in particular, never sure who claims Sherbrook, Wolseley or West Broadway...). My only complaints about Wolseley would be the small personal greenspaces (for the most part) and lack of parking (I love my cars). Oh, and the crazy environmentally-conscious folks who make it so that Wolseley is the breeding centre for every Winnipeg mosquito, making the walks down the beautiful tree-lined streets a back (and arms, legs, face, everything really) slapping good time.

Since Wolseley wasn't in the cards for me financially, I always assumed I'd end up in "fake Wolseley" aka, the West End. My options for the West End likely involved a lovely but small bungalow that would have been bursting at the seams with my endless collections of vintage treasures. But then I found my little gem of a place in the North End. Baffled that no one else wanted a 1400+ sq ft. beautiful 1920's house with 10" oak baseboards, a master bedroom with a walk-in closet and ensuite (plus 3 other bedrooms), hardwood floors and a DISHWASHER (ok, so I'm easily wooed) I put in my offer for less than half of the going West End rate at the time, and never looked back.

That doesn't mean that I don't still love Wolseley.  25-30 years ago, no one wanted to live in Wolseley either (or so I'm told, I mean, I was in elementary school, not checking up on Winnipeg real estate). The big beautiful houses were frequently run down, some of them were even, gasp, rooming houses, and you could pick them up for a comparative song compared to the bright and shiny 'burbs.

I like to think the North End is at that point right now, slowly transforming itself into an eclectic and diverse neighbourhood that will nurture its residents. One day, I can say I was in on the ground floor. Sure, not quite as valuable as buying into Microsoft or some other stock before it hit big, but in the intangible category, a pretty big score.

I spent most of Friday evening working on what I've dubbed The Wolseley Project. In addition to my regular obsessive maintaining of the boulevard and my ridiculous quantity of plants all over my steps, I decided it was time for some flower love in the boulevard,just like you see all over Wolseley. Now, the slightly more normal thing is to have some perennials and bring some height and drama, but I'm more of a "splash of colour" sort of girl, so I went for bedding plants, plus they're a bit more instant gratification than perennials. I've got orange and yellow and purple flowers and the reactions we got (big thanks to the roommate for help putting them in!) while planting them in was cautiously positive. One neighbour jokingly asked with whom he should place his bets on how long it would last. Well, I'm pleased to say, that if he had bet 3 nights or less, he would have lost.

 Yes, that's how I'm going to have to measure it, on a day by day basis, but that doesn't make it any less of a success for every day that they survive. Similar to the theory that kids won't tag a mural as quickly as they would a blank wall, my theory (and reinforced by the community members who've seen it so far, kids and adults alike) is that the people here appreciate people investing in their community and will treat it with respect, because those flowers are there for everyone to enjoy. Now, do murals sometimes get tagged? Yup. Will someone destroy the flowers? Maybe. Stay tuned for the progress of The Wolseley Project - here's hoping the next picture will be big strong healthy flowers with lots of blooms!